TOUR DE FRANCE 2017: MORE CHALLENGES

As tough the participants did not have a lot to be worried about, the route of the 2017 Tour de France seems to be designed in a more difficult pattern than ever seen, the new route will feature more daunting terrains to provide cyclists with challenging experiences that even their rigorous drills and extensive training has not prepared them for.

Christian Prudhomme, the Tour director has explained the reason for this in a statement. Prudhomme had said to his audience in Paris at the Palais des congres in Paris that in the New Year, the Tour de France as a competition will present a “less controlled and more open race.”

He stated that the main reason here was to “break the catenacio” of recent years. Keeping in mind that catenacio here refers to the football lexicon representing a strong defensive system.

In essence, the manager was saying that the goal was to create shake up in the competition structure and make it even more difficult for the powerful teams like team sky that will participate in the Tour.

However, Team Sky seems to have no serious cause for worry as when the route was unveiled, the pathways looked quite decent for team leader Chris Froome as the characteristic steeper and shorter climbs have shown to greatly favoured Froome; a three time champion in his past years.

Even renowned cyclist mark Cavendish himself and his team would be at peace, seeing as quite a good number of the nine stages in the Tour are bound to end in a sprint. However, to say that the Tour would be a walk in the park would be a statement so far from the truth as it has been setup to be a climber’s journey.

In early part of the Tour in the jura, to Chambery, there is an ascent of about 4600 meters and three categories of climbing. The competition is bound to be the master stage for sure!